You Can’t Own a Canadian

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Chapter 1:

The Smiley Man has a Moustache

“I don’t know, I think it would be fun to go to prom with another guy. You know, stir up some controversy in this boring-ass school,” I said to my friend Dylan as we walked down a crowded hallway to get to the locker we shared.

“Are you fucking crazy, Ace? You’ll be killed!” He replied adding a bit more melodramatics that were absolutely necessary and also using the nickname I had acquired from him when we first met. My real name is Aeson because my parents decided they hated me before I was born and named me after some guy in Greek Mythology. Over the years I came to accept it, except for when people called me “Ace”, it just seemed condescending to me, especially when they would say, “Way to go, Ace!” after I screwed up. Needless to say, of all people, Dylan should know not to call me that.

“I have told you since fourth grade to not call me ‘Ace’. How does that not get through to you after seven years, Lynn?” I replied, using the form of his name he hated, making sure to put extra emphasis on it.

“Touché,” he replied, “But, still, your plan is crazy. I mean what guy in his right mind would go to one of the biggest social events of the year with another guy?” He said as we reached our locker. As he started dialing the combination, I looked straight at him with a huge grin on my face, “Well, maybe…” I let the sentence hang.

He stopped just before he finished dialing and looked back at me.

“NO! I am not gay.”

“Neither am I, I just want to give the creeps in the school something to talk about.”

“No, it would give them something to laugh at us for,” he said, finishing the combination and opening the locker.

“Fine, you don’t have to do it,” I said, “But I am.”

“But why? Why put yourself through that kind of humiliation?”

That was a great question. Why did I want to do it? Well, for one thing, I wanted to do it just for fun. I also wanted to do it to bring to light how homophobic our school was. They would never expect for two guys to go to a dance together. I wanted to see people’s reactions. It really was more of a social experiment than anything else. I gave him the definite answer of “I don’t know” and closed our locker.

“It’s your funeral.”

“I mean it is still a month until prom, I should be able to find at least one guy to go with by then.”

“You mean find a guy willing to be gay for a day?”

I laughed, shrugged, and said, “I guess.”

Then I went home to figure out how to find one guy in a school of fourteen hundred people would go to the social event of their life with me.

This was going to be harder than it sounded.